• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.263-269
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• 2017

Recently, soft robots using soft materials are presented. Thanks to soft materials, soft robots have flexible, highly-stretchable or adaptable features. However, due to the flexibility of soft material, it is hard for soft robots to control accurately or perform high force. To deal with these limitations, variable stiffness technology, which enables the stiffness control of structure, has been developed. In this research, a dual-stiffness structure that is actuated by the assembly of two flexible structures are presented. Each flexible structure consists of flexible film part and rigid parts placed at regular intervals. The flexibility of film between rigid parts allows each structure to move softly. On the other hand, by combining two structures rigid part of each part constrain the degrees of freedom of the other side part. And this causes the stiffness of whole structure to be increased. This paper will cover concepts, design, analysis and experiments of this structure.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.399-415
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• 2023

In this study, we investigate the use of a negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system to improve the performance of a base-isolated structure. The negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system consists of a tuned inerter damper connected in parallel with a negative stiffness element. To find the optimal parameters for the base-isolated structure with negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system, we develop an optimization method based on performance criteria. The objective of the optimization is to minimize the superstructure acceleration response ratio, while ensuring that the base displacement response ratio remains below a specified target value. We evaluate the proposed method by conducting numerical analyses on an eight-story building. The structure is modeled using both a simplified 3-degree-of-freedom system and a more detailed story-by-story shear-beam model. Lastly, a comparative analysis using time history analysis is performed to compare the performance of the base-isolated structure with negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system with that of the base-isolated structure and base-isolated structure with tuned inerter damper systems. The results obtained from the comparative analysis show that the negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system outperforms the tuned inerter damper system in reducing the dynamic seismic response of the base-isolated structure. Overall, this study demonstrates that the negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system can effectively enhance the performance of base-isolated structures, providing improved seismic response reduction compared to other systems.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.586-594
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• 1999

To limit both the large displacement and acceleration response of the structure efficiently, the relationships between acceleration and displacement responses of the structure under several earthquakes are investigated for various horizontal stiffness of the base isolation system to determine the effective stiffness of the base isolation system in this paper. An example structure is a five-storey steel frame building as the primary structure and the secondary structures are assumed to be located on the fifth floor of the primary structure. Input motions used in the structural analysis are El Centre 1940, Taft 1952, Mexico 1985, San Fernando 1971 Pacoima Dam, and artificially generated earthquakes. The relationships of the absolute peak acceleration and the displacement at the top of the structure are calculated for various natural periods of base isolators under various earthquakes. The peak acceleration response of the fifth floor in the base isolated structure is significantly reduced by a factor of 2.1 through 6.25. Also, the relative displacement response of the floor to the base of the superstructure is very small. The results of this study can be utilized to determine the effective stiffness of the base isolation system.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.167-181
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• 2024

The soil-structure relative stiffness is a key factor affecting the seismic response of underground structures. It is of great significance to study the soil-structure relative stiffness for the soil-structure interaction and the seismic disaster reduction of subway stations. In this paper, the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio of an inhomogeneous soft soil site under different buried depths which were obtained by a one-dimensional equivalent linearization site response analysis were used as the input parameters in a 2D finite element model. A visco-elasto-plastic constitutive model based on the Mohr-Coulomb shear failure criterion combined with stiffness degradation was used to describe the plastic behavior of soil. The damage plasticity model was used to simulate the plastic behavior of concrete. The horizontal and vertical relative stiffness ratios of soil and structure were defined to study the influence of relative stiffness on the seismic response of subway stations in inhomogeneous soft soil. It is found that the compression damage to the middle columns of a subway station with a higher relative stiffness ratio is more serious while the tensile damage is slighter under the same earthquake motion. The relative stiffness has a significant influence on ground surface deformation, ground acceleration, and station structure deformation. However, the effect of the relative stiffness on the deformation of the bottom slab of the subway station is small. The research results can provide a reference for seismic fortification of subway stations in the soft soil area.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.95-103
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• 2010

This paper study on the accuracy improvement of nonlinear stiffness equation. The large structure must have thin thickness for build the large space structure there fore structure instability review is important when we do structural design. The structure instability of the shelled structure is accept it sensitively by varied conditions. This come to a nonlinear problem with be concomitant large deformation. Accuracy of nonlinear stiffness equation must improve to examine structure instability. In this study, space truss is analysis model Among tangent stiffness equation and nonlinear stiffness equation is using nonlinearity analysis program. The study compares an analysis result to investigate accuracy and convergence properties improvement of nonlinear stiffness equation.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.1144-1151
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• 2012

A damage in structure alters its dynamic characteristics. The change is characterized by changes in the modal parameter, i.e., modal frequencies, modal damping value and mode shape associated with each modal frequency. Changes also occur in some of the structural parameters; namely, the mass, damping, stiffness matrices of the structure. In this paper, evaluation of changes in stiffness matrix of a structure is presented as a method not only for identifying the presence of the damage but also locating the damage. It is shown that changed stiffness matrix can be accurately estimated a sensitivity coefficient matrix derived from modifying mode shapes, First, with 4 story shear structure models, the effect of presence of damage in a structure on its stiffness matrix is studied. By using these analytical model, the effectiveness of using change of stiffness matrix in detecting and locating damages is demonstrated. To validate the predicted changing stiffness and its location, the obtained results are compared to the reanalysis result which shows good agreement.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.351-364
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• 2017

In this study effects of various parameters like a number of bays, the stiffness of the structure along with the height of the structure was examined. The fundamental period of vibration T of the building is an important parameter for evaluation of seismic base shear. Empirical equations which are given in the Indian seismic code for the calculation of the fundamental period of a framed structure, primarily as a function of height, and do not consider the effect of number of bays and stiffness of the structure. Building periods predicted by these expressions are widely used in practice, although it has been observed that there is scope for further improvement in these equations since the height alone is inadequate to explain the period variability. The aim of this study is to find the effects of a number of bays in both the directions, the stiffness of the structure and propose a new period equation which incorporates a number of bays, plan area, stiffness along with the height of the structure.

• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.25-29
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• 2006

Analysis of structures which are composed of numerous repeated unit structures can be simplified by using homogenized properties. If the unit structure is repeated in one direction, the whole structure may be regarded as a beam. Once the effective stiffness is obtained from the analysis of the unit structure in a proper way, the effort for the detail modeling of the global structure is not required, and the real structure can be replaced simply with a beam. This study proposes a kinematical periodicity constraint to be imposed on the FE model of the unit structure, which improves the accuracy of the effective stiffness. The method is employed to a one dimensionally arrayed 3D structure containing periodically repeated unsymmetrical holes. It is demonstrated that the deformation behavior of the homogenized beam agrees well with that of the real structure.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.7 s.172
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• pp.170-176
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• 2005

Analysis of structures which are composed of numerous repeated unit structures can be simplified by using homogenized properties. If the unit structure is repeated in one direction, the whole structure may be regarded as a beam. Once the effective stiffness is obtained from the analysis of the unit structure in a proper way, the effort for the detail modeling of the global structure is not required, and the real structure can be replaced simply with a beam. This study proposes a kinematical periodicity constraint to be imposed on the FE model of the unit structure, which improves the accuracy of the effective stiffness. The method is employed to a one dimensionally arrayed 3D structure containing periodically repeated un-symmetric holes. It is demonstrated that the deformation behavior of the homogenized beam agrees well with that of the real structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.423-437
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• 2013

Complex structures are usually assembled from several substructures with joints connecting them together. These joints have significant effects on the dynamic behavior of the assembled structure and must be accurately modeled. In structural analysis, these joints are often simplified by assuming ideal boundary conditions. However, the dynamic behavior predicted on the basis of the simplified model may have significant errors. This has prompted the researchers to include the effect of joint stiffness in the structural model and to estimate the stiffness parameters using inverse dynamics. In the present work, structural joints have been modeled as a pair of translational and rotational springs and frequency equation of the overall system has been developed using sub-structure synthesis. It is shown that using first few natural frequencies of the system, one can obtain a set of over-determined system of equations involving the unknown stiffness parameters. Method of multi-linear regression is then applied to obtain the best estimate of the unknown stiffness parameters. The estimation procedure has been developed for a two parameter joint stiffness matrix.